WASHINGTON – Charlie Manuel hoped to get his 1,000th career win as manager a few days after the All-Star break, not a few weeks.

At this rate, he’d like to get there, period.

Someone reached the 1,000 plateau, but instead of Manuel it was Jayson Werth, whose 1,000th career hit was a three-run bomb that came on the first pitch Zach Miner served him in the bottom of the seventh that allowed the Nationals to overcome a four-run deficit and hand the Phillies their 10th straight road loss, 8-5, Saturday night.

The Phillies (52-64) put up four runs in the top of the second inning to give Cliff Lee a healthy lead. However, when the Nationals whittled it down to 4-3 by the time Lee’s night ended after six innings, it meant the bullpen would need to get nine outs with no margin for error.

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“When I’m out, my job is done,” said Lee, who had his pitch count pushed up by Washington batters spoiling two-strike pitches with foul balls. “It’s up to the guys behind me to keep it where it’s at.”

Manuel knows his team is in trouble when that is the circumstance. And he knows his bullpen is suffering from a lack of confidence as well as competence.

“It’s a confidence thing,” Manuel said. “You can see it. You see it, I see it. It happens that way. You see a difference when we’re behind in a game, or even up four or five runs. They feel it. They fight it. That’s the growing pains.

“But you have to find it sooner or later … You see (Werth), he’s confident.”

There aren’t many bullpens lousy enough to give those witnessing their work zero confidence they will get the job done. But the Phillies have one of them.

Jake Diekman came in to pitch the seventh, and from the moment he issued a leadoff walk to Steve Lombardozzi the lead was as good as gone.

Denard Span followed with a sacrifice bunt, and after Lombardozzi took advantage of Diekman’s slow delivery to the plate, he walked Ryan Zimmerman to bring Bryce Harper. The heady 22-year-old, surely aware Diekman has proven he can’t field, dropped a bunt that actually hung in the air as it went toward second base. However, once it found ground he had an easy RBI hit and the game was tied.

“The scouting reports these days are unreal. They have stats for everything,” Manuel said about the fact that teams are dropping bunts left and right against Diekman. “Those are things that come into play. The bottom line is, we’re not getting it done and we’re losing a lot of games.”

With Diekman’s mess made, Manuel looked for someone to bail his team out and keep the game tied. The man given the nod was Miner, who got a long look in spring training and by and large got pilloried.

Werth made it feel like Clearwater all over again when he smashed a ball a dozen rows into the seats for his 17th homer and milestone hit.

In the innings preceding Diekman and Miner’s follies, Washington reliever Tanner Roark worked two perfect innings, needing just 12 pitches to mow down the Phils and hand it to the back of the bullpen.

“I try to keep my cool,” Manuel said. “When you find different ways to lose every night, it gets tough.”

Darin Ruf and Domonic Brown each homered for the Phillies, and even Mike Martinez had two more hits in his third straight start in center field. But when it comes down to it, the Phils are losing at a mind-numbing pace.

Lee hardly recognizes this team as the same one that won 102 games two seasons ago.

“Yeah, it really is,” hard to believe, Lee said. “Not having (Roy) Halladay has hurt us pretty badly. Last year he was pitching through things and wasn’t really himself, then he has the surgery … We just had some bad luck with key injuries. There’s no way around it.”